Remember when you thought the boogieman couldn't get you if you hid
under your bed? Well, it seems that same scaredy-cat attitude has
seized America's racist rednecks regarding their "gun rights."
So fearful are these big-baby-buffoons that their imagined boogieman
(Obama) is out to "take away" their firearms, that gun retailers from
Virginia to Texas are almost out of ammunition of all types. Even
bullets for weapons that these jerks don't even own!
If only these ignorant bigot racists put more effort into their
education and occupational skills, they might not find themselves
among the nation's unemployed-losers.
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"Bullets are speeding faster out of gun shops in U.S."
A SHORTAGE OF AMMUNITION
Demand is up despite drop in crime rate
By David A. Fahrenthold and Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
IN A YEAR OF JOB LOSSES, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have
spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The
most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves.
At points during the past year, bullets have been selling faster than
factories could make them.
Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the
past year, industry officials estimate. That's up from 7 billion to 10
billion in a normal year.
It has happened, oddly, at a time when the two concerns that usually
make people buy guns and bullets -- crime and increased gun control --
seem less threatening than usual.
The explanation for the run on bullets lies partly in economics: Once
rounds were scarce, people hoarded them, which made them scarcer.
But the rush for bullets, like this year's increase in gun sales, also
says something about how suspicious the two sides in the gun-control
debate are of each other, even at a time when the issue is on
Washington's back burner.
The run started, observers say, as people heeded warnings from the gun-
rights lobby that a
new Democratic administration would make bullets more expensive or
harder to get. Now that the shortage is starting to ease, gun-control
groups are voicing their own dark worries about stockpiled ammunition.
In between, in the 12 months since last October, gun shops sold enough
bullets to give every American 38 of them.
"We've had people buy ammunition for calibers they don't even have the
gun for: 'Oh, I want to get this gun eventually. And when I get it,
ammunition may be hard to get,' " said Michael Tenny, who runs a Fort
Worth-based Internet sporting goods store called Cheaper Than Dirt.
Tenny said some of his ammunition tripled in price, but he still sold
it: "It's just like playoff tickets."
The Obama factor
It was already a political truism that Democrats prompt sales of both
guns and ammo. The U.S. government taxes both to support wildlife
conservation, and those receipts jumped after Bill Clinton was elected
in 1992 and after Democrats retook Congress in 2006.
But the spike under Obama seems to be on a different scale: The
receipts are on pace to set a record in 2009, according to Treasury
Department data, with tax revenue due from guns up 42 percent and
revenue due from ammunition at 49 percent. Recently, analysts have
said earnings reports from gunmakers seem to show demand for weapons
slackening.
The increase in gun buying during the past year explains a large part
of the increase in ammunition sales to the private market, experts on
the industry say -- but probably not all of it.
They say that bullets were bought not just by new gun owners but also
by those who already owned weapons. And they say bullet sales might
have increased even faster if supply had kept up with demand.
Bullet makers say the reasons for these shortages include the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, which have made bullet components such as copper
and brass more expensive.
For gun owners in the Washington area and elsewhere, the run on
ammunition has created shortages and price increases on everything
from cheap .22-caliber bullets used for target shooting to the
expensive hollow-point 9mm rounds bought for home defense.
In Maryland and Virginia, as in many states, anyone over 21 can buy an
unlimited amount of ammunition without a special license or background
check. The District has tighter rules for its one licensed ammunition
dealer: Gun owners can buy bullets only in the same caliber as their
registered guns.
Reason for alarm?
The high sales have alarmed some anti-gun groups. Josh Sugarmann of
the Violence Policy Center said he worries about a revival of the anti-
government militia movement of the Clinton era.
"This is a pattern that is repeating itself, and it is a pattern that
has tremendous risk attached to it," Sugarmann said.
But gun-rights groups say the buyers are law-abiding, and responding
to legitimate concerns.
"I think it's Katrina. I think it's terrorism. I think it's crime. And
I also think that it's people worrying about [whether] they'll be
attacked by politicians," said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice
president of the National Rifle Association. "They're suspicious, and
justifiably so."
But the most recent FBI crime statistics, from 2008, showed that rates
of violent crime were the lowest since 1989. The numbers for this year
have not been assembled yet, but police groups say violent crime still
appears to be down, although there may have been an uptick in property
crimes.
As for gun control, experts say that far from being under attack,
groups opposed to it have won a remarkable string of victories.
Clinton's ban on assault weapons expired in 2004. The U.S. Supreme
Court struck down the District's restrictions on handguns, ruling that
the Second Amendment creates an individual right to gun ownership.
Under Obama, the White House has said it wants to stop the illegal
flow of U.S. guns to Mexican drug cartels, and it directed Attorney
General Eric H. Holder Jr. to review the way current gun laws are
being enforced.
But a spokesman said that "the president respects and supports the
Second Amendment and the tradition of gun ownership in this country."
In the biggest gun-related debate of his tenure, Obama sided with gun
groups, signing a bill to loosen the rules on firearms in national
parks.
Still, in interviews with gun owners and ammunition dealers, many said
the run on bullets was sparked by worries about what Obama might do.
"It was just logical, based on his record as a state senator and his
record in the U.S. Senate," Dave Sugg, 37, a consultant in Ashburn,
said after taking target practice with a .22-caliber semi-automatic
Ruger rifle at a shooting range.
[Research director Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/02/AR200...
